After a lot of huffing and puffing, cups of tea and smokes, those pesky removal men have finally made it to my study. Please feel free to pop by and have a browse of the writing tips and advice. And if there’s anything writing related you’d like me to include in my study then please drop me a line.
My dad lives in a warden controlled apartment building.
He is by far the most sprightly and youthful of the residents and I think he loves his position as blue eyed boy to all of the white haired ladies. (I also think he is probably the only resident in the building who has a Bob the Builder duvet cover and pillow case set, but that’s quite another story!)
Yesterday he told me about a woman who lives in the apartment next door to his. She is in her 90s and needs a zimmer frame to get about, but although she might have lost a great deal of her mobility, she clearly hasn’t lost any of her mojo.
The first time she laid eyes on my dad she propped herself up on her frame and uttered the following classic:
“If you were to chase me, and I was to run away, I’d probably fall over and then (at this point she paused for dramatic effect) - then you’d be able to have me. Wouldn’t you?”
Before my dad could reply she picked up her frame and shuffled away to the sun lounge, cackling seductively.
Isn’t this just the best chat up line you’ve ever heard?
I can’t help but have a smug little chuckle at the publishers who paid ‘glamour’ model Jordan / Katie Price untold millions to put her name to a series of ghost written books for children.
I wonder how sales of these books have been doing since Jordan’s recent quiet, low key, get away from it all and get over the break up of my marriage in a dignified and self respecting way, holiday in Ibiza.
If I was the mother of a young girl I’m not sure I’d really want Jordan as their role model author. Now I know the argument about Jordan being a great role model because she ‘came from nothing’ and has made shed loads of money. But the reality is she came from nothing, took her clothes off at every opportunity and made shed loads of money from being lewd and obscene. I’d rather my daughter was poor and had a bit of dignity thanks.
Can you imagine if Enid Blyton had carried on like Jordan when she was knocking out her Famous Five books? Or can you imagine if Jordan actually wrote her own books? Or, even funnier, what if there was a parallel universe somewhere, where Jordan is Enid Blyton’s ghost-writer?
What follows in an extract of how I imagine one of those books to be (loosely based on transcripts from Jordan’s recent adventures in Ibiza as reported in the press and scenes from her reality TV show).
The Famous Five Go Large in Ibiza, Innit
Julian walked into the garden clad in his favourite lycra hotpants and holding a bottle of WKD. ‘Come on guys, let’s go down Pacha, I’ve heard they play some well phat choons and they’ve got lashings of ginger Bacardi Breezers, innit.’
Dick looked up from his copy of Playboy. ‘Wicked, Joolz. I’m well up for some of that.’
Both the boys looked over at the girls. George was doing her last set of 100 stomach crunchs for the day and Anne was busy making up a feed for her baby-by-a-footballer, whilst simultaneously checking how many followers she currently had on Twitter.
‘Do I have to come?’ Anne whined. ‘I just wanna stay here and talk about myself to the reality TV crew.’
‘God, Anne, you’re so boring,’ George hissed. ‘We’re in Ibiza. we’re supposed to be giving it large, isn’t it.’
‘Shut up, George, or I’m gonna cut you up,’ Anne shrieked back at her. ’Anyway, why should I listen to you? You’re fat and ugly and you look just like a geezer.’
George flung herself on the grass, wailing. ‘Oh God, I hate myself. Look at my muscles from running that marathon, they’re so gross. I can’t come to Pacha, boys. I’m well minging. And we’d better cancel that midnight feast an’ all. I’ve got a photo shoot for OK magazine next week. I need to book myself in for some emergency lipo.’
I don’t know about you but I’d take lashings of ginger beer with Dick and Aunt Fanny any day of the week…
There is a retired man who lives down the road from me.
Every winter he and his wife escape to their villa in Spain, to return to Blighty just in time for the first strawberries of Wimbledon. And every winter I try not to be too envious as I scurry down the street battling blizzards and rain, thinking of them sunning themselves on the beach.
The other morning I saw him looking very brown (and very cold) walking down to the paper shop. I hadn’t seen him since before Christmas.
‘Good morning!’ he exclaimed. ‘So what’s new?’
Now regular visitors to this blog will know that quite a lot is new in my world since I’d last seen him.
‘Well my boyfriend was diagnosed with a brain tumour,’ I began. ‘And then we were told that it was malignant melanoma,’ I added. ‘But, you know, the shock’s starting to wear off now and we’re just trying to get on with things as normally as possible.’
The man stopped dead in his tracks and grabbed hold of my arm.
‘Oh. My. God,’ he said (please add melodramatic, Irish accent for full effect).
I nodded and smiled. ‘It’s OK, we’re just trying to – ‘
But by this point he was staring off into the middle distance, shaking his head. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘I mean, you’ve both had your fair share of heartbreak.’
I looked at him quizzically. What was he talking about?
‘Life’s been hard,’ he continued, as I did a quick mental sweep of all of our two minute chats over the years. As far as I could remember there had been a fair bit of talk about asylum seekers and knife crime and how the country was going to the dogs (before he bought his copy of the Daily Mail). But I had never talked to him about any personal heartbreak before or my , ‘just trying to keep everything together,’ as he was now saying, lost in some private world of sorrow that he had obviously created for me. Was it because I read The Mirror, I couldn’t help wondering.
‘No really, it’s all fine,’ I tried to cut in, but it was too late. now he was staring into my eyes and clutching both my hands.
‘And then,’ he said, ‘Then, when you finally find each other, and you finally get a bit of happiness in your life, this happens and it’s all snatched away from you. Terrible. Terrible,’ he muttered as we arrived at the paper shop.
I said good-bye and kept walking, feeling a whole day’s happiness begin to slide from my reach.
My instinct was to go back home and crawl into bed. But then I remembered my pledge to live like a man for a week (see previous blog).
I wasn’t exactly sure what a man would do in this situation but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t go home and weep. So I marched back to my house and straight up to my son’s room. As soon as I entered his bedroom I knew exactly what to do. ‘Pillow fight!’ I yelled at the top of my voice, before charging at him.
Last night I went to see the brilliant new film The Hangover - for those of you who haven’t yet seen it – go. It is laugh out loud brilliant and the cameos from Mike Tyson and his pet tiger are fantastic.
After my mini rant last week about women’s mags and their obsession with all things skeletal I was interested to see an advert for a male skin care product just before the film. To an accompanying musical score that sounded like it came staight from Top Gun, male patrons in the cinema were advised (by a booming, baritone voice) that it wasn’t enough to just use foam when you were having a shave, but you had to prepare your skin beforehand and then – get this – MOISTURISE – afterwards.
However, the voiceover didn’t actually say the dreaded M-word. Instead he roared – ‘NOW IT’S TIME TO REFUEL.’
Refuel?!! I watched as the male model in the advert slathered cream all over his chops, my heart pounding in time with the music, as I imagined a fighter pilot somewhere topping up his tank before zooming off on his next mission. All clean shaven and moisturised and ready for whatever might happen.
No talk of ‘pepty-penty-bismides’ or ‘oxy-collagen Q10′ and all the other sci-fi nonsense that accompanies adverts for women’s moisturisers.
Did you know by the way, that as well as recently having her breasts re-re-sized so that they are more in keeping with the dictates of the fashion world, Posh Beckham has been paying hundreds of dollars for a moisturiser made out of bird crap? And that elsewhere, desperate women are smearing snail slime on their wrinkles as some genius has told them it holds the key to ever lasting youth?
Is it just me, or is there a hint of the Emperor’s new clothes about all of this?
I can half imagine some evil-doer somewhere (in my imagination he looks like a cross between Lionel Blair and Quentin Crisp) rubbing their hands with glee as they come up with yet another mad scheme to make fools of anxious women.
‘I know, how about we get them to smear crystallized dog turd on their faces – bird crap is SO last season.’
I’m telling you ladies – dog crap is only small step away from sparrow poo!
I can’t ever imagine men being told to ‘REFUEL’ in this way – and accepting it.
In The Hangover four male friends go on a stag weekend to Las Vegas. What follows is two hours of adventure, mayhem and fun. At no point do the protaganists stop to smear bird shit on their faces, obsesess about their weight or decide which part of their anatomies they’re going to disfigure next. THEY WERE TOO BUSY HAVING A GOOD TIME!!
In stark contrast, every time the film cut to the bride to be, she was pictured looking sulky and thin as she lolloped about her parents’ house waiting for her betrothed to return.
Well no more I tell you. For the next week I’m going over to my masculine side. Instead of moisturising I’m going to ‘refuel’ (with a £2 pot of Nivea from Superdrug, containing no faeces of any description). When I put on make-up I’m going to be a Native Amercian applying tribal war paint – and a booming voice in my head will say things like, ‘ARE YOU READY TO KICK ASS, BIG CHIEF CURLY HAIR?!’ . I’m going to boycott women’s mags and I’m going to drink pints and eat pies and organise burping contests and tag team wrestling in my living room.
I’ll let you know how I get on….
So, I went for some cake (following my previous blog detailing my recent fatastrophe), but although the cake was delicious and my stomach was clamped in place by my tightest fitting jeans, unfortunately this was to spark my second personal crisis of the week.
I had been joined in my cake fest by my good friend and the fantastic writer Anna May Mangan at our local coffee shop (Sounds Like Jarpucks). We like to meet there from time to time to drink frothy coffee, eat cake and talk life and the universe and, oh yes, writing.
Last time we met I had got there first and ordered my drink and cake. When Anna arrived she went and got a drink but refrained from any eats. I remember thinking that she might have been on a diet, or ‘devastated’ that she’d eaten a biscuit the night before, a la Carly Zucker (see previous blog) but once she had sat down she began furtively fumbling in her bag under the table before bringing out a delicious looking muffin that had quite obviously not been purchased in Sounds Like Jarpucks.
‘What are you doing?’ I whispered, shocked.
‘I’ve smuggled a cake in,’ she replied. ‘It’s from Sounds Like Pchibo – their cakes are so much nicer than the ones they do here. Try some.’
Just one mouthful of deliciously moist lemon muffin was all it took to make me realise that she was right. And I knew that from then on there would be no going back. So I pushed my too-dry carrot cake to one side and tucked in to Anna May’s contraband.
Yesterday, when we met up, we had planned ahead. Anna was smuggling two cakes in this time- one for each of us.
Hearts racing, we set up our lemon muffins behind our giant sized coffee mugs and, eyes darting around furtively for any sign of a Sounds Like Jarpucks employee on the prowl, we tucked in.
But then suddenly I had an overwhelming sense of deja vu. The last time I had done something like this had been back when I was a teenager and had started going clubbing up in London. Unable too afford the pocket money busting drinks in the West End, my friends and I would smuggle small bottles of vodka into clubs and then slip shots into glasses of coke when no-one was looking.
Back then it had felt so reckless and wild – each throat-burning sip a reminder of the huge risk we were taking. But if someone had told me then that in twenty years time I would be getting the same thrill from secretly munching on smuggled muffins in a coffee shop I think I would have died of mortification! Is this what happens to you as you approach 40? Is this as ‘rock and roll’ as it gets?
And if so, what next? Getting my kicks from shoplifting denture glue? Eating a packet of Polos to disguise the smell of Horlicks on my breath?!!
Yesterday I was doing some editing at my computer. Every couple of minutes I would look down at my stomach and grimace and the following thoughts would echo through my head.
God, I hate my stomach.
Eurghh, it’s so fat.
Why am I so bloated?
Why can’t I have a flat stomach? Why does it have to stick out?
Now to get this into some kind of context I have never had an eating disorder and I am a size 10 (which used to be considered slim until women started aspiring to look like lollipops). In other words, I have absolutely no reason to be hung up on my weight, but still I continued to torture myself, squeezing my roll of stomach flab in my hands like I was kneading dough, wondering if I should stop eating bread and start drinking that miracle water that allegedly burns calories as you sip it.
In the end I decided to go to the corner shop and get a copy of a women’s magazine that my friend Victoria Connelly has just had her book, Molly’s Millions reviewed in. Maybe if I walked briskly it would help to burn off a bit of stomach? Maybe the magazine would help take my mind off it?
I got the magazine, sat back down at my desk and looked at the cover. Two headlines jumped straight out at me.
“DRASTIC DIETERS” – above a picture of a skeletal looking Cheryl Cole
and:
“PARANOID KERRY: I think Mark will stray – my fat repulses him” – beside a picture of a distraught looking Kerry Katona.
I then flicked my way through the magazine, trying to find the reviews section, and was bombarded with image after image of women with sunken cheeks and jutting hipbones and ribcages and stomachs that weren’t just flat but caved in like question marks. The headlines inside were no better either: ‘Cheryl sheds 10 lbs in three weeks!’, ‘AMELLE: I’ve conquered my size 0 demons’, ‘My body repulses Mark’, ‘I’ve spent £135k copying my idol’s look’, ‘Holiday tum panic – Carly Zucker was devastated when she gained 5 lbs on a girlie holiday’, ‘It’s my dream to be called gaunt’, ‘DIET INSIDER’, ‘Tone up in four weeks’, ‘I don’t like my ears’, etc, etc.
Interestingly, the one main article featuring a man carried the headline, ‘I stuff my face with food and booze.’
So the question is, why do us women do it to ourselves? Why, when life has more than enough crap to throw at us, do we insist on turning on ourselves.
Women have ‘fat’ days and ‘bad hair’ days. One of the best-selling books for women on how to attract the opposite sex is called ‘The Rules’. The equivalent for men is the much more fun sounding, ’The Game’.
Can you imagine a male celebrity saying, ‘I think my partner will stray – my beer belly repulses her’? Or the headline, ‘Holiday tum panic – Wayne Rooney is devastated that he ate one too many pies on a recent break to Ibiza’ ?
Can you imagine a group of lads down the pub swapping diet tips or discussing ‘wheat intolerances’? It just wouldn’t happen, would it, because men would be too busy having a good time, or playing The Game, rather than beating themselves up over The Rules.
At the risk of sounding all California psycho-babble, isn’t it time we spent our energy on loving life rather than hating ourselves?
I’m off now for some serious cake action!
Is anyone else following Gordon Ramsay’s mega successful Australian restaurant launch? So far he has managed to offend one of Oz’s most popular female television presenters, Tracy Grimshaw, spark national outrage and be called “a new form of low life” by the Australian Prime Minister.
Apparently Ramsay has referred to Grimshaw as a pig, a lesbian and in need of Botox (what, so she could have a face as baby smooth as yours, Gord?). Whilst a guest on her show he commented on Grimshaw’s facial mole, saying , “Is that a wart? It looks like your little sister’s on your lip.” The next day, at a food fair, he also allegedly said of Grimshaw, “We were secret lovers for 20 years,” then added, “No, I didn’t go there…I didn’t stoop that low.”
Ramsay has said he was “only joking”.
Grimshaw has vowed never to interview him on her TV show again.
She also said, “I’m not surprised by any of this. We’ve all seen how he treats his wife – and he supposedly loves her,” in a reference to his alleged seven year affair with Sarah Symonds, author of a ‘How To’ book on being a good mistress – nice.
The most baffling part of this whole sorry aga saga is what Ramsay said next. “For me on a personal front, to see how sad and bitter for someone like that to come out – a renowned pro – to stoop that low and attack my wife is disgusting. It’s obvious she’s done it for ratings.”
Okay, now I must be missing something here. Firstly, Grimshaw was only responding to Ramsay’s own “sad and bitter” attacks on her appearance and sexuality. To say that she is doing this to boost her ratings is ludicrous. Ramsay’s comments on the other hand, were neatly timed to coincide with his restaurant launch.
Secondly, how exactly has Grimshaw “attacked” his wife? Doesn’t it just make you want to vomit, to hear this bully suddenly so concerned for his wife. When the details of his ‘alleged’ affair came out, was Ramsay man enough to publically apologise for the pain and humiliation he had caused his wife?
No, of course not. He carried on making jokes about sleeping around and rubbing her nose in it. Then, when Grimshaw dares to mention this, she is the one ‘attacking’ Tana Ramsay.
Male chefs like Ramsay make me laugh. They are so deeply insecure about the fact that they cook for a living – traditionally a woman’s role – that they have to dress it up with ridiculously macho posturing. In Ramsay’s case developing Tourettes and bashing women at every opportunity. And in Marco Pierre White’s case, dressing like Yasser Arafat and talking to his fellow cooks as if they are about to mount the Charge of the Light Brigade, when all they’re actually about to do is make a souffle.
Get over it boys, we really don’t mind you doing your share in the kitchen!
A recent study has shown that regular dog walking is good for your mental as well as physical health. Only 8% of 150 depression sufferers found that their condition had returned after six months of daily dog walking.
Hmm – the study failed to mention anything about stress levels though.
This morning I was walking my dog Max in our local park when a man entered with his dog.
‘Good morning, gorgeous!’ the man exclaimed when Max bounded over to say hello. Then the man looked up to see me smiling at him and immediately said, ‘Oh sorry, I was talking to your dog.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Not that you’re not attractive or anything,’ he continued.
‘OK,’ I repeated, pulling my baseball cap further down over my bed hair.
‘You are attractive.’
‘OK.’
‘Not that I’m trying to come on to you or any-’
‘It’s OK,’ I interrupted, hurriedly walking off. It was way, way too early for this kind of social nightmare.
But the trouble with my local park is that it isn’t very big. And the only footpath goes around in a big circle. Therefore, if you happen to have an embarassing encounter with a fellow dog walker, you either have to trail along really slowly behind them, or walk in the opposite direction and then face the humiliation of having to walk past them every three or four minutes.
This morning ‘Gorgeous’ decided to walk in the opposite direction to me. Therefore every three or four minutes we had to walk past each other with our eyes firmly fixed on the shrubbery, as if endlessly fascinated by the surrounding plant life.
'Gorgeous' Max
The first time I ever walked Max in the park I had an even more excruciating experience. Still brand new to the depression buster that is dog walking, I had kept Max on the lead so, when he stopped to sniff the butt of an oncoming dog, I had to stop too. So did the other dog’s owner. Stuck for something to say, I said the first thing that came into my head. Not the good old reliable, ‘lovely weather for the time of year’ or ‘raining again’ but the immortal words, ‘Good job we don’t have to sniff each other’s butts, eh?’
The woman looked at Max, with his nose half way up her dog’s backside, and visibly shuddered. She didn’t even offer a response, just tugged her dog away and marched off. The problem was she was marching in the opposite direction to us, so a few minutes laterI had to suffer the humiliation of passing her again, this time imagining a cartoon thought bubble rising from her head, reading, ‘Oh God, it’s that awful woman who talked about sniffing my genitals!’
Dog walking might cure depression but it’s a mare for stress related disorders let me tell you.
Greetings!
Just to let you know that the pesky removal men finally made it to my virtual Bedroom – so please feel free to have a snoop in my Writing and Reading Journal…